With a recruitment pool of around 1.4 million people of working age within a 60 minute peak commute catchment of the city you have a lot of people and a lot of skills to choose from. In addition, Sheffield's two universities create around 16,000 graduates each year, and the city is an extremely attractive location for students to stay in.
There are two universities in the city - Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield - offering over 1,100 courses between them, it is no wonder that over a quarter of the population are qualified to at least first degree level. The high level of professionals in the city helps contribute to Sheffield Hallam's status as one of the wealthiest areas in the country outside of London.
Sheffield remains synonymous with engineering and continues to manufacture a range of quality products by its highly skilled workforce. Whilst the engineering sector is still dominant, it employs 13.8% of the workforce within the 60 minute commute catchment. The private service sector employs 45.7%, with 12.5% in financial services, 12.7% in legal and accounting, and 9.2% in computer and data activity, evidence of the city's new skill and knowledge base in the business service sector and digital new media industries.
Sheffield schools continue to produce excellent GCSE and A level results and with specialist schools in Engineering, IT, Business and Sport, the future for the city's skills is bright.
For further details of Sheffield's student population, skills profile and GCSE and A Level performance, please see the documents available to download on the right.
Foreign language skills
Sheffield dominates in the provision of language services in the Yorkshire & Humberside region, and universities in the city account for over 60% of the region's postgraduate language students and around 20% of undergraduate language students.
Research has shown that businesses in Sheffield found the provision of language and cultural skills to be good, and two thirds have found it easy to train people with existing language skills in job-related skills. 63% of companies in Yorkshire and the Humber employ staff with existing language skills.
''Insight operates across 14 countries in Europe and our Sheffield based European finance shared service centre is increasingly required to support international clients. This creates a demand for multi-lingual staff with finance and client services experience. We have found there to be a plentiful supply of high calibre candidates with French, German, Spanish and Russian language skills."
Russell Leighton, Senior Vice President Finance, Insight EMEA & APAC
Language teaching
Language teaching in Sheffield starts from the ages of 3-5 and the most widely taught languages are French, German and Spanish.
Four secondary schools in the city specialise in languages and are widening the range of languages on offer to include Italian, Russian and Mandarin. The vocational emphasis in schools is complemented by two schemes which provide students with the opportunity to see the workplace value of language learning:
- The International Business Communications programmes provide 15 year olds with tailored language learning and a series of work placements to partner organisations who make extensive use of language skills.
- Students also have the opportunity to pursue foreign work experience in France, Germany or Spain.
Languages at universities
All students can undertake a range of languages as a supplementary part of their course at both universities in Sheffield. Additionally there are large populations studying on courses with a named language element.
Regional Language Network Yorkshire & the Humber
The Regional Language Network Yorkshire & the Humber is an independent organisation whose sole purpose is to provide expert information, advice and support on all matters relating to language and culture to any business from the region that needs to communicate with international customers, suppliers or employees.